Children of the Ghetto eBook

He had been at it all day, and he went on far into
the small hours, shaking his body backwards and forwards
without remission.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COURTSHIP OF SHOSSHI SHMENDRIK.

Meckisch was a Chasid, which in the vernacular
is a saint, but in the actual a member of the sect
of the Chasidim whose centre is Galicia.
In the eighteenth century Israel Baal Shem, “the
Master of the Name,” retired to the mountains
to meditate on philosophical truths. He arrived
at a creed of cheerful and even stoical acceptance
of the Cosmos in all its aspects and a conviction
that the incense of an enjoyed pipe was grateful to
the Creator. But it is the inevitable misfortune
of religious founders to work apocryphal miracles
and to raise up an army of disciples who squeeze the
teaching of their master into their own mental moulds
and are ready to die for the resultant distortion.
It is only by being misunderstood that a great man
can have any influence upon his kind. Baal Shem
was succeeded by an army of thaumaturgists, and the
wonder-working Rabbis of Sadagora who are in touch
with all the spirits of the air enjoy the revenue
of princes and the reverence of Popes. To snatch
a morsel of such a Rabbi’s Sabbath Kuggol,
or pudding, is to insure Paradise, and the scramble
is a scene to witness. Chasidism is the extreme
expression of Jewish optimism. The Chasidim are
the Corybantes or Salvationists of Judaism. In
England their idiosyncrasies are limited to noisy
jubilant services in their Chevrah, the worshippers
dancing or leaning or standing or writhing or beating
their heads against the wall as they will, and frisking
like happy children in the presence of their Father.

Meckisch also danced at home and sang “Tiddy,
riddy, roi, toi, toi, toi, ta,” varied by “Rom,
pom, pom” and “Bim, bom” in a quaint
melody to express his personal satisfaction with existence.
He was a weazened little widower with a deep yellow
complexion, prominent cheek bones, a hook nose and
a scrubby, straggling little beard. Years of professional
practice as a mendicant had stamped his face with an
anguished suppliant conciliatory grin, which he could
not now erase even after business hours. It might
perhaps have yielded to soap and water but the experiment
had not been tried. On his head he always wore
a fur cap with lappets for his ears. Across his
shoulders was strung a lemon-basket filled with grimy,
gritty bits of sponge which nobody ever bought.
Meckisch’s merchandise was quite other.
He dealt in sensational spectacle. As he shambled
along with extreme difficulty and by the aid of a
stick, his lower limbs which were crossed in odd contortions
appeared half paralyzed, and, when his strange appearance
had attracted attention, his legs would give way and
he would find himself with his back on the pavement,
where he waited to be picked up by sympathetic spectators
shedding silver and copper. After an indefinite
number of performances Meckisch would hurry home in
the darkness to dance and sing “Tiddy, riddy,
roi, toi, bim, bom.”